According to researchers, almost all video games predicate their success on two basic stimuli: education and rewards. Games—whether educational games, Angry Birds or Halo—require players to learn as they go along, including if they’re just learning how to play the game better. These challenges help stimulate our brain’s hippocampus and keep them motivated to try repeatedly. The game rewards our determination and our successes in various ways: coins, perks, weapons upgrades, etc.
“Now here’s where it gets really interesting to researchers like me who are interested in the connection between gameplay and depression,” writes Jane McGonigal for Slate: “These two regions of the brain, the reward pathways and the hippocampus, are the same two regions that get chronically understimulated, and that even shrink over time, when we’re clinically depressed. In other words: Video game play is literally the neurological opposite of depression.”
McGonigal notes, however, that going into gaming with an escapist mindset, the gamer ironically is more apt to become more depressed, anxious or socially isolated. “That’s because the more depressed you feel or the more stressful your life gets, the more you play games—and the less time and effort you put into action that could help solve your real-life problems,” she writes. “Your problems therefore get worse, so you spend more time gaming to escape them. It’s a vicious cycle.” (Slate)